January 12 Lecture

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School

University of Toronto St. George

Department

Classics

Course

CLA204H1

Professor

D.Sells

Semester

Winter

Description

CLA204H1 January 12, 2010 Lecture 1 What is Myth? -traditional tale or story, comes from Greek muthos meaning authoritative speech, story or plot -mythology, muthos, story and logos account = study of myth -structure; beginning, middle conflict, end -characters: gods, goddesses and other supernatural beings, humans, animals -settings: never in present or recent past, always in distant past or outside of human chronology; possibly a city or other known place, sometimes in an obscure place -evidence: literature, drama, pottery, dance, sculpture Function of Myth -traditional; from Latin word trado, meaning give order or transmit -oral; memorized and recited before written form (unstable) -communal; important for its community preserves wisdom, concerns, laws, values of a culture -anonymous; no authors of originals, literary authors take myths and present a specific version (e.g. Homer, Sophocles present different versions of the same myth) -truth: Greeks thought myths were accounts of history Genre: classification of literary works on the basis of content, form or technique Three main genres of traditional tale 1. Divine Myth 2. Legend 3. Folktale Divine Myth -prose narratives considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past -characters: gods and heroes, superior to